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Government United Kingdom IT

A Four-Day Work Week Would Be Affordable For Most UK Firms, Says Think Tank (theguardian.com) 139

Posted by EditorDavid from the thank-god-it's-Thursday dept.
"A carefully designed four-day week could be introduced in the UK immediately and be affordable for most firms with more than 50 workers, a think tank has said," reports the Guardian, citing new research from a not-for-profit think tank: A report by Autonomy – which is campaigning for a shorter working week without loss of pay – said the majority of 50,000 firms studied would be able to cope with the change through higher productivity or by raising prices. The think tank said the government should investigate ways of rolling out a four-day week, starting with the public sector. Although many companies are struggling with the lingering impact of the UK's deepest slump in more than 300 years, Autonomy said that even under its "worst-case" scenario, a four-day week would be affordable for most firms once the initial phase of the Covid-19 pandemic had passed.

It accepted, however, that some firms in sectors where labour costs were high and profit margins thin would experience cashflow problems if changes were implemented too quickly. Will Stronge, director of research at Autonomy, said: "For the large majority of firms, reducing working hours is an entirely realistic goal for the near future. By providing a hypothetical 'stress test', we can dispel any myths about the affordability of a four-day working week.
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A Four-Day Work Week Would Be Affordable For Most UK Firms, Says Think Tank More

A Four-Day Work Week Would Be Affordable For Most UK Firms, Says Think Tank

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  • contradictory (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Saturday January 02, 2021 @07:01PM (#60888636)
    If they have to raise prices then NO they can't effectively do it. Businesses charge what the market can bear, very few charge less than they can simply to be nice.

    • Re:contradictory (Score:4, Funny)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Saturday January 02, 2021 @07:20PM (#60888686)

      Sure, but they can still do it by pushing the "raise productivity" button.

      It's amazing that nobody ever thought of raising productivity before.

      Thank God for think tanks. What would we do without them?

      • Sure, but they can still do it by pushing the "raise productivity" button.

        I mean, at least a day a week at work is wasted time anyway. If people weren't required to come in on Friday if their work was done, I can see a lot of people goofing off less (or staying late off the books in the evening). That would increase the productivity.

        • I mean, at least a day a week at work is wasted time anyway.

          That's true but reducing the work-week doesn't solve that problem.

          • Conditionally reducing it might. "Fridays are catchup days, no one wants to be here or wants you here. Work hard Mon-Thurs" could be a thing.

            • Productivity is rarely easy to measure on a week-by-week basis.

              So on Friday, you will have little idea how productive your IT dept or accountants were on M-Th.

              In a large company, individual workers have little control over aggregate production. Even their own performance can be reduced if their boss makes a dumb decision.

              Getting their day off yanked away at the last minute is likely to lead to bitter and cynical workers, especially if they made plans or promises to their kids or friends.

              • I mean, you don't have to measure it week-by-week. You can literally do it quarterly or whatever. If they're constantly taking four-day-weeks and are behind, you tell them to move to five for the next quarter, and then let it float the quarter after. Same way you would deal with an incompetent employee in any respect, only here you have a "mandated 5 day quarter" as a step on the path to firing.

                • Actually the "when your work is done, you go home" strategy has potential to introduce a lot of efficiencies.

                  • Actually the "when your work is done, you go home" strategy has potential to introduce a lot of efficiencies.

                    How many jobs have a daily work quota that can actually be measured?

                    My work consists of team projects that last for weeks or even months. Sometimes we finish way ahead of schedule and sometimes behind. But that seldom has anything to do with how hard I worked. Rather, it was because of poor up-front planning, sometimes by me, but often by others.

                    For receptionists, security guards, cashiers, nurses, waitresses, and many others, their work requires their physical presence for a block of time. It is never

                    • But sometimes you do work faster, and sometimes you do it slower.

                    • If you're waiting on someone else, you write an email to that effect and take off early. Who does it benefit for your to be bored in your cube?

                      Yes, some people have to be on site and this doesn't apply to them. Also, some people cannot WFH. That doesn't mean everyone has to suffer.

                    • Every job I ever had had a quota of work that could be measured and could not be done faster. Ran a farm for 25 years, a planter covered a set amount of ground and had to run at a precise speed. A harvester could only be ran at a set speed. I installed CATV cable for a few months, I had to run cable from the street to the home, easy to measure that. I was a tech at a produce packing plant, if the boss got an order for 40,000 5lb bags of potatoes I knew exactly how long I had to run the machines and of cours

                    • But sometimes you do work faster, and sometimes you do it slower.

                      Yes, but my boss has no idea when. Nor is there any way for her to measure it.

                    • ok, if you're doing agile, just say, "At the end of the sprint, if your work is done, you can have the day off."

                    • Cool, this sprint I have committed to fix only one bug.

                    • God speed, friend, god speed.

                    • If you're waiting on someone else, you write an email to that effect and take off early. Who does it benefit for your to be bored in your cube?

                      What if the thing you're waiting on them for is something that would take them 15-30 minutes, but while you were typing that email they thought "who does it benefit for me to be bored in my cube (or office or house)" and took off just before receiving your email.

                      Now, if their phone beeps just as they pull out of the parking lot they have two choices: 1) turn around and park, do 15-30 minutes of work and send it back to you, 2) figure that you're not expecting a response today and just leave it 'til tomorrow

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by rtb61 ( 674572 )

            Reducing the work week, nay, you have been fooled. It is about creating two work weeks, the three day work week and the four day work week, probably demand the same number of work hours, they are as greedy as fuck.

            So it is about creating two work weeks, to keep the gears of capitalism grinding out profits, lubricated by the blood and bone of the workers.

            So four days of eight hours and three days of twelve hours, don't be surprised when you are forced to work all seven, year in and year out. Capitalism neve

            • Things will be much better when all the workers have been replaced by robots and nobody has to leave home anymore- right? Who needs a job...
      • Itâ(TM)s especially egregious because this think tank is really just pushing for a 20% public sector pay rise.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      If you read the report they are talking about small fraction of a percent increases in retailers like supermarkets where there aren't many productivity gains to be had.

      I think many people would be okay with that if it meant they could work 4 days a week.

  • People can't grasp arbitrary things they've always (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MikeDataLink ( 536925 ) on Saturday January 02, 2021 @07:04PM (#60888642) Homepage Journal

    People will complain that its somehow socialism and its a free day off even though the weekend is an arbitrary number people came up with years ago. Why not work 4 on 3 off? It's all arbitrary. It's whatever we the people want. If three days off is socialism, then why aren't we working 6 days? Hell why not 7? Only commies get a day off! Pull yourself up by the bootstraps and work Sat/Sun too!

    Funny thing is, I have always told my employers over the years I would work a four day week for 20% less pay. But no one has ever taken me up on. I'd kill for an arrangement like that.

    • Why not work 4 on 3 off? It's all arbitrary. It's whatever we the people want.

      If it is all arbitrary, why not 2 on and 5 off?

      If three days off is socialism, then why aren't we working 6 days?

      In Soviet Russia, 6-day work weeks weren't eliminated until 1967.

      In Red China, 6-day work weeks were mandatory until 1995.

      The shorter workweek came first to capitalist countries. The commies got it later.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Capitalist China still expects people to work 996, that is 9AM to 9PM for 6 days a week.

        Lack of labour laws and a huge power imbalance between corporations and workers makes it hard to refuse.

        The issue isn't the economic model, it's the level of general prosperity giving people choices, or not.

        • Tiawan expects that? Got a cite?

      • Re:People can't grasp arbitrary things they've alw (Score:5, Informative)

        by cas2000 ( 148703 ) on Saturday January 02, 2021 @08:21PM (#60888834)

        > The shorter workweek came first to capitalist countries. The commies got it later.

        You can thank unions, not capitalists, bosses, or the miraculous power of capitalism in general.

        Same as sick leave, annual leave, the 8 hour working day, health and safety laws, workers compensation (for job-related injury, death, dismemberment, etc) and more. These and almost every other benefit were won by unions and the blood of union members.

        None of those things were granted out of the generosity and kindness of employers (they have none). They were won by hard struggle against violent - even murderous - opposition by employers, often aided by capitalist state power (criminalising strikes and other union activity, using police and military as strike breakers and for surveillance of unions & workers, etc).

        • Unions are a scam, and have not helped the condition of workers. The ability to produce an adequate supply of goods to live on is what allows shorter working hours, and no amount of unions leeching off productive systems can change that.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by cas2000 ( 148703 )

            that's what i love about slashdot: all the brainwashed, ignorant americans regurgitating divide-and-conquer propaganda.

            try studying history (and geography too, while you're at it) - actual history, that is, not the triumphalist "rah! rah! america is the best! at everything! the bosses know best!" and pledge of allegiance(*) programming you get in your "schools".

            (*) seriously, it takes a very fucked up kind of fascist state to require school children to recite an oath of allegiance and worship a flag, and to

    • 40 hours is for some reason holy. Offer to work 4x10 instead, and you're more likely to get taken up on it. I bring this up since you are someone who seems to believe large blocks of time off are better.

      • Exactly what I always did. I offered Mon-Thu @ 10hr. Those that saw four days as anathema I offered 4*9+1*4. Always worked.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by green1 ( 322787 )

        In fact 4x10 is usually MORE productive than 5x8 because you reduce start/end of day inefficiencies. Unfortunately a previous employer didn't seem to get it, I had been working 4x10 for several years along with many others, then a new VP was appointed and suddenly 4x10 "wasn't fair" because you weren't working as many days as everyone else, so we all had to work 5x8 again. I switched employers shortly thereafter.

        Really though, the whole "hours per day" and "days per week" thing in any field that isn't direc

    • I have always told my employers over the years I would work a four day week for 20% less pay. But no one has ever taken me up on. I'd kill for an arrangement like that.

      I negotiated that arrangement with two different companies simultaneously. I took the one that offered the most money. You need to work on your negotiation skills.

    • Half day Fridays is common (unofficially) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Saturday January 02, 2021 @07:52PM (#60888762) Journal

      Lots of places unofficially work half days on Fridays. I've worked at several such places. Of course less work means those places produce less than the places where people work 50+ hours, and they pay less.

      Whenever I'm looking at a new job, I'm looking at those kinds of things and balancing against salary, commute, etc.

      My last few jobs, my boss wasn't too worried about what hours I was working - either my knowledge and productivity (what I bring to the company) is worth what it costs them, or it's not. What hours I'm working really doesn't factor into the equation. I produce the results that I do, and my salary costs a certain amount. They really don't have any reason to care about my hours.

      That said, they sometimes DO care if they are looking for me because there is a problem and often they can't find me. Also, I kinda have to show up to certain meetings. I put my company chat and email on my phone so that if there is something urgent I can reply, which means I don't necessarily HAVE to be at my desk at any particular time.

      As a side-effect of having company messaging on my phone in case I'm grocery shopping at 3PM on a Thursday, I also see any urgent messages that show up on a Saturday evening. Most messages can wait until Monday; occasionally I take care of something at odd times and I think my bosses notice that. It kinda balances out - I'll deal with an emergency on a Saturday if it's truly necessary, I'll take my kid to the hair salon on a Wednesday if that's their only convenient opening.

      • My last few jobs, my boss wasn't too worried about what hours I was working - either my knowledge and productivity (what I bring to the company) is worth what it costs them, or it's not.

        Yeah, funny that. I'm salaried. I don't get paid by the hour. My boss and I talk about what we want done and it's up to me to manage my time (good thing because he's 2,700 miles from me). If I can get enough done in 32 hours, yay me. If I have to be on some 7 AM or 8 PM phone calls with India or China, well, that's part of the deal.

        What I found odd about the article is it definitely started from the perspective of "we want to hire more people, how do we do it?" and not "what's the best way to improve standa

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tom229 ( 1640685 )
      Keep your money and instead ask to work from home. I actually convinced my boss to let me work from home 3 days a week, and this was before COVID. After COVID, they are of course even more open to the idea.

      If your job is anything like mine (and I think most peoples) you'll notice that you don't really work 8 hours a day. I only really work, work probably 3-5 hours a day. With no commute and no boss breathing down my neck, that's a lot more "me time". I can get the kids on and off the bus, can take little

    • There's a factor missing in this calculus. Which four days? If everybody has Friday off, what happens when someone outside the company needs something on a Friday? It's a bit like trying to be a tourist in France in August. Disney ran into that problem. So, the only way to make this work is to stagger who gets what day off. A few people work Monday through Thursday, others Tuesday through Friday. Maybe even break it up so people don't get a three day weekend. You'd also have to institute 10-hour wor

  • It all seems fine for non-salaried employees (Score:3)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Saturday January 02, 2021 @07:11PM (#60888652)

    Salaried employees would probably end up working four 15 hour days, you know, just to make sure they're being
    "effectively utilized".

  • What kind of conclusion is that? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by inhuman_4 ( 1294516 ) on Saturday January 02, 2021 @07:18PM (#60888668)

    A report by Autonomy – which is campaigning for a shorter working week without loss of pay – said the majority of 50,000 firms studied would be able to cope with the change through higher productivity or by raising prices.

    What? Seems pretty clear that the conclusion is that they cannot afford it. If they could afford it they wouldn't need to raise prices would they?

    I understand that this "study" (and I use that term loosely) was done an advocacy group. But even they must realize that these companies must compete both with each other and internationally, so how is that supposed to happen after raising prices and paying the same money for less work? This reminds me of that "study" from a few years ago that concluded that basic income works because "only" 1 out 4 participants quit their job to live on the dole.

    If you're going to hit us up with these nonsense think tank studies at least have the common courtesy to hide the ridiculous assumptions and lies somewhere in the fine print like the megacorporations do. At least they don't insult our intelligence by giving up the game in the first paragraph.

    • This reminds me of that "study" from a few years ago that concluded that basic income works because "only" 1 out 4 participants quit their job to live on the dole.

      That sounds perfectly reasonable. We can easily get by with 25% less workers at any given time.

      • Re:What kind of conclusion is that? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by SuricouRaven ( 1897204 ) on Saturday January 02, 2021 @07:49PM (#60888752)

        Arguably, yes. Remember that only a few generations ago, it was unusual for women to seek paid employment. It still is, in some countries. So it's clearly possible to have 50% of potential workers outside of paid employment and still have a functional society.

        • A few generations ago families were larger and lives (and thereby retirements) were shorter. Putting women to work has not created a large increase in the working population [tradingeconomics.com] like you may think. In 1960 the employment rate was around 56%, it peaked in the early 2000s around 64% and then declined to a pre-COVID rate of 61%. A paltry 5% point gain. This is then compounded by governments that have grown faster than their underlying economies.

          Losing 1 out of 4 workers would drop the employment rate to a mere 46%

      • We can easily get by with 25% less workers at any given time.

        Then why not reduce the staff by 25%?

        Do you really believe that greedy capitalists are paying 25% more workers than they need?

        • o you really believe that greedy capitalists are paying 25% more workers than they need?

          Yes. Have you ever worked at a company?

          Or, to put it a different way, do you think the people taking that option are doing something more than working minimum wage somewhere already? I'm willing to accept 25% of resturants and walmarts closing. And that's at the current minimum wage. What would really happen is that those companies would raise the salaries and we'd pay marginally more.

          • Do you really believe that greedy capitalists are paying 25% more workers than they need?

            Yes. Have you ever worked at a company?

            If your workers goof off 25% of the time, it means they are human. It does not mean you can fire 25% of them and expect the others to never goof off again.

            • Yes, I said the natural consequence of 25% of minimum wage workers quitting will be higher wages and prices, and fewer fast food and other places. I said that was fine.

          • I'm willing to accept 25% of resturants and walmarts closing.

            How fucking big of you.

      • That sounds perfectly reasonable. We can easily get by with 25% less workers at any given time.

        And how easily can you get by with 25% less of a paycheck? Because that is the crux of the matter. It's not like this person is disappearing, they're still going to get paid. But now that money is going to come out of your pocket via the government, instead of their own pocket. They are also going to keep using the services and infrastructure that has to be paid for by the remaining 75%.

        • Those people aren't going the be equally distributed - they're going to be making minimum wage now. So, total cost of their takehome pay is an additional 11% of the federal budget, or less than half of what Social Security costs. Factor in the elimination of unemployment benefits, etc. and it falls to under 10%. A much more modest ask

          Alternatively, we can make the taxes more progressive, and place that burden entirely on incomes over a million dollars by an extra 3-5% (its in there, but looking up the pr

    • would think of that. The study notes it would create 500k new jobs. That would likely have a huge boost to wages.

      e.g. companies would raise prices but wages would go up faster to compensate. This is one of the things people tend to ignore: that things can actually get better.

      After to decades of "Austerity" for employees we've gotten so used to them getting worse that we've forgotten they should be better. We live in 2020 for fucks sake.

  • If you can produce adequate productivity with just 4 days per week of labor, then logically you can increase productivity (and therefore profit) by 25% by continuing the 5-day workweek.

    This is how capitalism works; Being more efficient as a laborer doesn't mean you get to produce the same output in less time, it means you get to produce output more for the same time.
    =Smidge=

    • If productivity could be boosted by 20%, would workers prefer a day off or a 20% raise?

      Many, if not most, would prefer the extra pay.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      you can increase productivity (and therefore profit) by 25% by continuing the 5-day workweek.

      Not with the same employees. People pace themselves. They'll get work done in a shorter time period if they know a break is coming up.

      If that's possible. If the assembly line speed limits the rate of production, then there's not much that can be done. But a secondary benefit might be a lower error rate. If people can maintain a higher level of concentration for shorter stretches of time.

      • > Not with the same employees. People pace themselves. They'll get work done in a shorter time period if they know a break is coming up.

        This has always been true. What's different in recent decades is technology has allowed a worker to be more productive in the same time - nobody's working *harder* than before, but they are working more efficiently.

        It's the Jevons Paradox of labor.
        =Smidge=

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • > It's not how people work. People don't arbitrarily increase output.

        Technology enables someone to be more productive with the same amount of effort.

        The idea of a 4-day workweek is that, thanks to increased productivity, you can produce the same amount with less work.

        The core concept of Capitalism is that with increased productivity, you'll produce more by working the same amount.

        This is why the only people who will see a 4-day workweek will be people who probably don't need to be doing that job at all.
        =

  • If you solution to improving quality of life doesn't increase production, the availability of things will be unchanged. Basically, if only 10 cars are produced only 10 people can have cars. If you reduce the work week and it results in a productivity drop then quality of life will reduce too. The whole reason people work 5 days is so that they can purchase things for themselves or people they care about. If you forcefully reduce the work week with the same salary, inflation must go up. The price of goods wi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      Did that happen when society changed from a 50-60 hour workweek to a 40 hour workweek? Wasn't that long ago, as in my grandfathers time that 10-12 hours a day, 5 and half days a week was normal. A bit further back and the whole family was putting in those hours.

      • No, because we had MORE stuff to buy due to improved productivity. Unless you have goods to buy, wages aren't worth anything... somebody has to produce "stuff".
  • I thought brexit was going to destroy the UK economy according to slashdot?

    • Check in another two years or so and see how it turns out.

      (My guess? It'll be a mixed enough bag that everyone will declare they were right from the start, and cherry-pick examples to prove it.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tom229 ( 1640685 )
      I've been away awhile, do they really think that here? That's cute.

      If you trade the forex markets, you'll notice that GBP actually isn't dropping at all, like many assumed it would. Why? Well this is where reality butts heads with propaganda.

      The propaganda is that the UK needs the EU for free trade and movement of people. The reality is that such an agreement is so mutually beneficial to both sides that they'd be insane not to do it, so it's getting done anyways. And with the only supposed "benefit" o

  • Work week should be defined in hours (Score:3)

    by HuskyDog ( 143220 ) on Saturday January 02, 2021 @07:36PM (#60888736) Homepage
    Where I work (in the UK public sector) the concept of a four or five day week doesn't really make any sense any more. I work fully flexible hours mostly from home and really have no idea how I would any longer measure how many days I work each week. It used to be the case that leave was measured in days, but even that is now defined in hours. Some at work are suggesting that we should simplify things even more by taking the number of work days in a year (52 x 5 minus leave and public holidays), multiply by 7.5 (length of working day) and simply declare that people need to book that many hours per annum.

    Now, I absolutely accept that there are plenty of jobs where this sort of extreme flexibility wouldn't work but I would submit that there are an awful lot like mine where it would.
  • I worked for a classic technology/programming company. I was talking with the CFO about this issue and pointed out two bits of science that backed it up. One was that 4 day work weeks increased productivity in tech firms, and that 6 hour work days increased productivity, and that combined the two resulted in a bit extra productivity on top.

    He thought that it was a good idea so he offered to the employees 4 day work weeks... at 10 hours per day. He didn't care which as long as everyone put in their 40 hou

    • two bits of science that backed it up. One was that 4 day work weeks increased productivity in tech firms, and that 6 hour work days increased productivity, and that combined the two resulted in a bit extra productivity on top.

      Sorry, but what you are saying sounds like complete bullcrap.

      You say that "science" backs up your assertions, yet you provide no links or citations.

      Combining 4 working days with 6 hour days would mean a 24-hour workweek.

      Are you seriously claiming that scientific studies show this is more effective?

      Yet profit-seeking capitalists have somehow failed to notice the published scientific proof that they could make WAY more money by cutting payroll while increasing production?

      Do you seriously expect anyone to beli

      • Do you seriously think that people working 40 hours per week are productive 100% of the time? Most companies are already calculating lower than 100% productivity to account for the human factor. By lowering the working hours and increasing the hourly rate, they get the same final output at the same cost and happier employees who don't burn out and don't think about leaving.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by green1 ( 322787 )

          Do you think people cram all their unproductivity into the last 2 hours of the day and the last day of the week? I can guarantee that if you reduce the number of hours worked, the percentage of productive ones is unlikely to change by the same amount.

  • the governments at all levels implement it for 5 years to see if there are any unforeseen consequences.
    Wait most government employees work a 4 day week or less now and get paid for 5. So if your not concerned with productivity or cost seems like a good plan.

  • Or, could firms simply give employees more time off and leave it to them how to allocate that time?

    • Or, could firms simply give employees more time off and leave it to them how to allocate that time?

      That depends on the firm and the employee. Flex-time may work for a programmer or graphic designer. Receptionists, security guards, and cashiers can't set their own hours.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

        That depends on the firm and the employee. Flex-time may work for a programmer or graphic designer. Receptionists, security guards, and cashiers can't set their own hours.

        Nobody claimed that they could do it without advance notice, you bootlicker. You've never worked a food service industry job in your life, have you? When labor is scarce, it's amazing how managers can fit scheduling requests submitted in advance into the next bi-week.

  • Many people could go to a zero-day workweek and the world wouldn't lose anything. Whatever trickery they used to calculate these numbers, I suspect it's more accurate to say "1 out of every 5 workers is useless" rather than "1 out of every 5 workdays is useless".
    Now, the solution to that problem is a lot harder than a schedule change. It involves hurting lots of people's feelings. It requires good leadership at the employer, and in government, all acting in good faith toward right-sizing the workforce and t

    • suspect it's more accurate to say "1 out of every 5 workers is useless" rather than "1 out of every 5 workdays is useless".

      I doubt it. A lot of programmers will work hard for a while, then waste time in meetings while their brain recharges. Or they'll think about a problem. It's not unreasonable for me to say I'd be as, maybe more, productive if I left after six hours than if I stayed for eight.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by green1 ( 322787 )

        So all your time wasting is always in the last 2 hours of the day? If you were only there for 6 you honestly don't think you'd waste any of that time the way you waste time now?

        Seems highly unlikely.

      • Most people are not programmers. Not 1 in 5, not even 1 in 20. An "essential worker" like a grocery cashier checks out twice as many customers if he's clocked in twice as long. A secretary answers twice as many calls. A strawberry picker gathers twice the berries.
        Though the tech industry is probably doing a relatively better job clamping down on worthless jobs I guarantee you there's a few at whatever company you work for. They probably keep them on another floor, away from the techies, so they won't get up

  • A four-day week in the public sector would create up to half a million new jobs...

    So, the private sector cannot do this, but the public sector (paid from taxes raised from the private sector) could.

    What we in the UK need and want are less public sector tax-sponging employees, and more private sector tax-producing employees.

  • For-profit companies are not into 'affordable'. They are into maximizing profits for themselves and for their shareholders, without any ethical considerations.

    • For-profit companies are not into 'affordable'. They are into maximizing profits for themselves and for their shareholders, without any ethical considerations.

      It's not just companies. You'd be amazed how many employees who, if offered the choice of 1) a pay cut, 2) keeping the same pay, or 3) a pay increase, will choose #3.

      Also, individual people who don't think of themselves as "For-profit" will often do something known as "shopping around" where they look at identical or near-identical items and choose the least expensive one.

      Some people will deliberately buy the most expensive item in order to show off. Lots of other people will say nasty things about those pe

  • This might be somewhat pronounced in my industry (IT) but one thing COVID has taught me is that I probably only really work like 3 hours a day. My wife is an Executive Assistant and noticed a similar pattern. I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn that the average person probably only is productive 60% of the time or less. Given that, ya, a 4 day work week seems doable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by green1 ( 322787 )

      Only if all that unproductivity is crammed into the last day of the week so you can get rid of it that way. If your unproductivity is somewhat evenly distributed, shortening the work week wouldn't get rid of it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tom229 ( 1640685 )
        Well it's not like I'm lazing around just putting off work. I have a job to do, and I do it. My deadlines, like most office people, are largely task and time oriented, not number-of-hours-spent-working-on-it oriented. That type of measure of productivity kind of died out with assembly line jobs.

        So assuming that I'm still getting the same amount work done every week, which I would have to because I have deadlines, then I don't see why it wouldn't work out the same.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by green1 ( 322787 )

          What you're saying though isn't that you should work 4 day work weeks. What you're saying is that you shouldn't have to work any specific hours as long as you produce the output your employer wants.

          And that part I agree with you on. In jobs that aren't directly customer facing, the only real reason for any specific work hours is lazy management who don't understand the work that they require of their subordinates.

          That said, the amount of work given to each employee would still likely be sized to be roughly

  • Be like Germany? (Score:3)

    by petes_PoV ( 912422 ) on Sunday January 03, 2021 @02:50AM (#60889726)

    According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] the average German worker puts in 1354 hours a year while the average British worker does 1670. So dropping the British working time to 80% would put the Brits on 1336 hours per year. I am guessing, but it seems to me these figures include both full-time workers and part timers. Otherwise the numbers suggest that German workers work for 36 weeks a year (based on a 5-day week of 37.5 hours) and the British 44.5

    I do not think that working "German" hours would necessarily, automatically produce German levels of efficiency. While Germans have higher productivity [oecd.org] (104% vs. 100% per hour worked), it isn't that much higher. Not enough to absorb a 20% drop in hours. Plus, since it is the amount of value produced by all the workers in a company that determine the amount of money available to pay them, then the writers of this report would need to go into detail about how that gap would be filled.

    Finally, has anybody asked British workers if they actually prefer a 4-day week over (for example) longer vacations?

  • The world is run by people who are only playing a game. The game is called making money. They don't have any interest in the people who make their money for them. This will never change. The work week is already longer than it has ever been. This will not change.

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